Lower Stakes

Abstract

In this chapter, we revisit some of the themes from earlier chapters, but we turn our focus to signs for nonpresidential races, including House and Senate races, races for statewide offices, races for the state legislature and local office, and state and local ballot initiatives. First, we discuss how sign displaying might be different for down-ballot contests and describe similarities and differences between households that display down-ballot signs and those that display presidential signs. Second, we compare individual-level models of down-ballot displaying with the models presented in earlier chapters, exploring both household and individual-level traits. Finally, we utilize the clustering and joint clustering tests to examine whether down-ballot signs exhibit patterns of clustering that are similar to those we observed with respect to presidential contests. While we find differences in who displays down-ballot signs, the spatial patterns we observe are highly consistent with those in presidential races.